Departures

1) One way the book describes how they were able to have multiple religions was “because Shinto did not have strict doctrines, and because there were many points in common between the two religions, Japanese were able to combine Shinto and Buddhism without much difficulty. They are able to do this because of a tradition of taking elements from foreign cultures and adopting the best parts of them. The book calls this litoko-dori which is described as the “habit of adopting the most useful borrowings.” Therefore people are able to have multiple religions because they take the parts they like from both religions and mesh them together to have their own personal spirituality.

2) Litodori is the process of taking elements from foreign cultures. One scene that shows this was when the main character asked what type of music he should play for Christmas. The man said he didn’t care Buddhist, Christian, etc”. This showed that the Japanese have a variety of traditions rooted in foreign cultures.

3) The job was to prepare dead bodies to be cremated. At first Daigo is ashamed of the job and won’t tell anyone about the job. But in the end he likes the job and lets his wife leave him so that he can keep the job. From the parts of the movie watched in class, Daigo’s wife is always disgusted by the job and does not want her husband to continue it.

4) The biggest difference is that the rituals for preparing the body are public in Japan, but private in America. In America someone takes the body to a mortician and the family does not see the body again until the funeral. However, in Japan the family is present and the preparing of the body is part of the ritual.

5) This movie showed an interesting view of Daniyo Kankei between Daigo and his wife. In the beginning of the movie she acts as expected by supporting his decision to move and to quit the cello. She also acts as expected when she does not get a job because of Daigo’s new job. However, there are also scenes when she breaks the tradition of the woman being completely subordinate to the male. For example, she left him and stood her ground on her opinion that he should not be working with the dead.  Moreover, she demonstrates how the social status of women is becoming more equal to men.

6) Thus far the movie has made me think about how American society views souls versus how Japanese does. The film shows many grieving families and it made me think about how I would like my funeral to go. Overall, I found this movie to be one of the more interesting ones that we’ve watched, and I am curious to know how it ends.